An Empirical Research On The Influence Of Responsibility, Framing And Sunk Cost On Escalation Of Commitment

Escalation of commitment (EOC) refers to the phenomenon, whereby, in the face of negative consequences, decision-makers increase resource commitment and risk further losses. It has been a hotspot in the area of decision-making. EOC has been studied a lot and got plenty of achievement. Previous studies have found that EOC is affected by many factors, among these factors, sunk costs, framing effect, self-justify is the most important cognitive factors, and they are the very hot research points. Therefore, based on previous studies and in the context of Chinese culture, the research is to study how the college students are affected by sunk cost, responsibility, framing in the decision situation of new product development. The research includes three experiments. In experiment 1,we examine how sunk costs and profits influence EOC; In experiment 2,we examine how responsibilities and external framing affect EOC; In experiment 3, the effect of self-framing is studied. Finally, our results are as follows:1. In face of losses, EOC exits commonly.2. Pepole who suffer from higher level of sunk costs show stronger EOC.3. Though profits are not related to EOC, in the lower level of sunk cost,profits have a significant effect on EOC.4. Responsibility is not the direct effect of EOC, but cognitive primitives are positively related to EOC.5. Both the external framing effects and the self-framing effects are existed.6. The discrepancy between the hedonic tone of gamble option and the sure option influence EOC.